Cake intern, part three...

This the final installment of cake baking. Read part one and part two to get the full story on the cake. 


The decorating is complete. It may not be as perfect as I'd like - but I did skate a few mini disasters.

 The first thing I did was take the cake out of the fridge and start outlining what I wanted to accomplish. The buttercream was nice and stiff, so I didn't have to work as fast as I had anticipated.This was a good thing.

I used a bamboo skewer and a couple of stencils to trace. What I did figure out, rather quickly, that I need to invest in a star cookie cutter, because drawing stars without a stencil or outline - is hard as hell and when I got them onto the cake they looked like a four-year old had drawn them. And yes, I know what stars look like drawn by a four-year old.

This is one of the disasters I encountered. Note to self, read directions before assembling the piping materials. Evidently I managed to snip a small hole into the bag.

I was able to finish by wrapping a paper towel around the issue. A Band Aid of sorts. I followed the outlines I had made with the skewer with the frosting and had a place to start.

Once I had the actual outline done for the first go around I had to start a new color, and a new tip. That meant cleaning up the mess I made (pictured above). The paper towel may have worked, but it wasn't pretty when I took the bag apart.

I had blue frosting everywhere.

The next step was to fill in the blue.

I wanted orange, but I ended up with a dark yellow. I also realized that the more coloring I put in, the thinner the frosting got - makes sense. I even learned something for the next time. Using liquid is out. I'm using gel or powder for the next go round.  Powders and gels will give me a much more vibrant color without the thinning problem.

That folks, is why the practice. The cake I'll be making in about a month is far more important and this was an opportunity to get back in the swing of things.

This step shows how lame the stars are.

The good news, however, was the outlining was much easier to do, and the bags were easier to handle. With each color and tip change - they got easier. Exactly why practicing was important.

I just had to remind myself that a two-year old doesn't care what the cake looks like - only that sugar shock is inevitable.

Think we're covered there.

This was also a great opportunity to know what tools work, and what one's I should ditch. The tips worked great, but another bag break. Granted, squeezing the hell out of it probably didn't help - but still.


Again, with the color, I didn't get what I was going for at all. The yellow was too pale and I didn't like it - but I had to live with it.

Yellow, I have found is a lot easier to clean up too.

Luckily I was able to get the bag fixed and the stars completed.

You may be asking, why the letters? Well, it was the easiest thing I could think of that would allow me to practice stencil outlining, piping an outline and working within the outlines.

I did stars for the same reason as well, tighter space and good practice evenly piping within a border.

I did have one hell of a hand cramp though.


This was the point I thought I might be done, and then realized I just didn't like it. To me it wasn't colorful enough, and I just felt like it was blah. And, I had one tip that I hadn't been able to work with yet. So, I decided to mix up some red icing - which, I had to settle for something with a little thinner consistency because I was not putting pink on this cake. I loaded up the bag and started to see what I could do - without completely ruin it.

 I started with just a line around the bottom, and I didn't like it. I tried a couple techniques as well. The first one was to make a wavy line - hated it. The second was to put individual stars all the way around - way too complicated, and I would have still been piping. I settled just on a line.

It was still boring with just the one line on the bottom, so I decided to dry and give it a box or block effect. It dressed it up a little, I just wish I could have been more meticulous about the line and the piping. I changed my mind multiple times, and it's noticeable where I decided to change the techniques.

However, the goal wasn't perfection, but brushing up on techniques. I think I achieved that.

I just hope it tastes okay, stays moist and doesn't give anybody a buttercream overdose.

I'm not sure that's possible though.

I guess we'll find out when the little guy eats his piece of birthday cake. If we have to peel him off the wall - next time I should consider using less frosting. If he crashes by nine o'clock - I know I have some wiggle room in that department.

Either way, he'll have a real cake to celebrate his second year.